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Friday, November 11, 2011

"Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey"

This is one of those headlines that at first glance seems to make little sense.  When you read the story, you see that is legally true, and probably worth worrying about, maybe.  It turns out that much of the honey sold in the U.S. is actually so highly processed and filtered that the pollen has been removed--which makes it impossible to determine its country of origin.  Why would you care?  According to the article:

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA isn't checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.

Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey - some containing illegal antibiotics - on the U.S. market for years.
 
Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.
There is a little part of me, as I red between the lines, that wonders if there is an actual problem, or if American honey producers are trying to stop overseas competition.  Nonetheless, with the corner-cutting approach that Chinese producers of other food products have taken, I would like to know more about this.

5 comments:

  1. [ I wonder ] if there is an actual problem, or if American honey producers are trying to stop overseas competition. Nonetheless, with the corner-cutting approach that Chinese producers of other food products have taken, I would like to know more about this.

    I've been following this for a few years and of course it started out as an "anti-dumping" trade action, which prompted the Chinese to launder their honey through countries like Vietnam which previously had only exported small amounts of specialty honey.

    But if you distrust any food that's sourced from the PRC as I do---and see Jerry Pournelle's comment that as documented by the British and Japanese it is a centuries old "traditional Chinese business practice to establish relations with a customer, then slowly over time degrade the product delivered until the customer complains."---then you will like me only consume honey that says it's a "Product of USA" and hope the company is not lying.

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  2. I would not trust the Chinese for our food--they have an abysmal reputation for quality and safety!

    Watch out for apple juice as well. It is now hard to find anything that is not chinese!

    Am I the only one that wonders if putting lead into toys is intentional to insure our children will be math and science challenged?

    -walt
    Boise

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  3. Walt:

    Never assume conspiracy when greed and stupidity are just as valid. Conspiracy requires intelligence, and that is woefully in short supply.

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  4. Yeah, greed is quite enough:

    Lead pigments are cheap and high quality (if you ignore their toxicity; in the '70s I used some of my father's left over from the '60s lead paint with due care) and I'm sure the jewelry with lots of lead is simply from people mixing up batches of pot metal with whatever's cheap, and you can scrounge lead from used car batteries. And it has a nice, low melting point.

    Although they did have a point about the bulk of the Mattel recall: it wasn't their fault that Mattel's designs with small magnets were dangerous (if a child swallows 2 small magnets they can do ugly things in the gut).

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  5. Clayton,

    I was mostly being facetious...

    I would agree about the lack of intelligence supporting conspiracy coming from folks here in either the US business or government community, but I would also not rule out the Chinese as they are quite smart...after all they may very well be on the way to defeating us and they didn't even have to fire a shot...

    Cheers.

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